Sinking Creek 4WD Association

So I've been battling this issue for awhile now and thought I'd try and get some opionions as to what the causes may be still. Here's what I have installed:

4" Rough Country Lift (Trac-Bar bracket sucked, see below)
Iron Rock Off Road Trac-Bar
Iron Rock Off Road Dual Steering Stabilizer Kit (To try and get rid of the DW)
New TREs on both the Tie-rod and the Drag-link
265/70/17 (fairly worn) Dunlop Mudrovers

I've retorqued everything. Checked the ball joints/wheel bearings for play and found minimal play in them. Rotated my tires and it seemed to help take care of the problem until recently. The lift kit came with long non-adjustable lower control arms. It also came with a 1" t-case drop kit which I did not install (might as well just do a 3" if I did, but it would have probably helped my driveline vibes). I didn't get a realignment since I replaced the TRE's which may be part of the problem, but I set the toe in to 1/8th +- 1/16th. The alignment may be part of the issue, but I doubt it is the root cause. The problem to me seems to the be trac-bar bushings. They seem to have some play in them despite being almost brand new with less than 5000 miles on them. My main question is how much play can I have in them without it being a problem, and is it possible that they have worn out prematurely as a result of getting DW. Tires may also be an issue. With the toe-in they will wear on the outside which may throw my camber off. IDK I feel like I am running out of root causes. Let me know what you think.

I had some death wobble surface in the past few months. It got quite bad a few weeks back. I got a new track bar, because I suspected there was some play in either the bushing, or the tie rod end. Unfortunately, that did not help at all. I decided to get my tires balanced, since they'd been chuncked up a good bit, probably lost some wheel weights, etc. To my pleasant surprise, balancing the tires did the trick. Pretty cheap too.

I would check your track bar bushing/joint and from there, if you suspect the tires could be out of balance, go that route.

Yeah tires were my seconded bet. I may just splurge and get new tires and an alignment as long as I get everything paid for school first. When I rotated my tires it seemed to help a lot. It may be that my home alignment job just isn't doing the trick and is causing my tires to wear poorly and the longer the recently rotated tires were on the worse they may have gotten.

When does this death wobble occur? Under braking or just whenever, or after you hit a pot hole? You might want to check your brake rotors too. They might be warped. My XJ had some brutal death wobble due to some warped rotors.

Death wobble is one of those problems you can keep throwing parts at for ages.

I would check your control arm bushings and caster settings. Don't underestimate the importance of caster.

I generally believe death wobble is a combination of poor alignment and worn out parts. Tight fresh parts can usually overcome poor alignment and a good alignment can often overcome worn out parts, but in conjunction, well, you're fucked

I recently had some shimmy in the front end, wouldn't call it death wobble necessarily, rotated and balanced the tires and it has gone away.

Brett

So I'm frustrated. I decided to tighten the worm gear on the steering box. It helped take all the play that was in my steering wheel out which is awesome. However, I still heard a clunk in the steering. I got under to inspect things out and had a buddy turn my wheel. It looks like the clunk is from a brand new tie rod. I pulled apart all my new tie rod ends and the boots seem to be wearing out on them?!?! Could it be because I overtorqued them? I torqued them about two turns past the hole for the cotter pin~30 to 35 ft-lbs. The tie rod that seems to be clunking is the most expensive one too which I couldn't find a cheaper on it was like $70 and was suposedly a 'high performance' pos. The boot is worn out on it already and it is the non-greasable kind. Hopefully, I can take it back to autozone for a refund.

I wouldn't recommend tightening the steering box......I went down that road once

shmoken875 wrote:I wouldn't recommend tightening the steering box......I went down that road once

Why? I did it on my Bronco. What happened to you?

BadAssEddie wrote:

shmoken875 wrote:I wouldn't recommend tightening the steering box......I went down that road once

Why? I did it on my Bronco. What happened to you?

I was always told that that adjustment screw was only for fine adjustment and more often than not it is adjusted too far leading to premature wear and possible binding.

I did it to eat up the slop in my front end (prior to the dana 44), and it felt like it did. I ended up with more slop. I guess it was just the added friction that held the steering wheel but not really the rest of the mechanisms.

i just adjusted it an 1/8th of a turn. it felt like that was even a little much so i backed it a 1/6th of a turn. you are right you do not want it to bind, ie. the gears have to mesh and not sit flush kinda like setting pinion depth and backlash i suppose. steering feels tighter, and it seemed to emliminate most of the bump steer problems i was having. still feels like something is shifting when i turn from left to right cruising down the road. likely culprit being the tie rod end i mentioned before on the drag link (axle side) or play in the track bar bushing. any ideas as to how to determine which it is? i can't really tell by just clocking the steering while not moving.

You tightened it an 1/8 turn and then loosened it a 1/6 turn? so you essentially loosened it?

1/16thish haha. you know what i meant.